To Sail Beyond the Sunset: The Life and Loves of Maureen Johnson (Being the Memoirs of a Somewhat Irregular Lady)

Maureen Johnson, the somewhat irregular mother of Lazarus Long, wakes up in bed with a man and a cat. The cat is Pixel, well-known to fans of the New York Times best seller The Cat Who Walks through Walls. The man is a stranger to her, and besides that, he is dead.

Double Star

One minute, down-and-out actor Lorenzo Smythe is, as usual, in a bar, drinking away his troubles while watching his career circle the drain. Then a space pilot buys him a drink, and the next thing Smythe knows, he's shanghaied to Mars. Smythe suddenly finds himself agreeing to the most difficult role of his career: impersonating an important politician who has been kidnapped. Peace with the Martians is at stake, and failure to pull off the act could result in interplanetary war.

Time Enough for Love: The Lives of Lazarus Long

Time Enough for Love is the capstone and crowning achievement of Heinlein's famous Future History series. Lazarus Long is so in love with life that he simply refuses to die. Born in the early 1900s, he lives through multiple centuries, his love for time ultimately causing him to become his own ancestor. Time Enough for Loveis his lovingly detailed account of his journey through a vast and magnificent timescape of centuries and worlds. Using the voice of Lazarus, Heinlein expounds his own philosophies, including his radical ideas on sexual freedom.

The Cat Who Walks through Walls

When a stranger attempting to deliver a cryptic message is shot dead at his dinner table, Richard Ames is thrown headfirst into danger, intrigue, and other dimensions where Lazarus Long still thrives, where Jubal Harshaw lives surrounded by beautiful women, and where a daring plot to rescue the sentient computer called Mike can change the direction of all human history.

Methuselah's Children

After the fall of the American Ayatollahs as foretold in Stranger in a Strange Land and chronicled in Revolt in 2100, the United States of America at last fulfills the promise inherent in its first Revolution: for the first time in human history there is a nation with Liberty and Justice for All. No one may seize or harm the person or property of another, or invade his privacy, or force him to do his bidding. Americans are fiercely proud of their re-won liberties and the blood it cost them; nothing could make them forswear those truths they hold self-evident. Nothing except the promise of immortality…

Friday

Friday, a secret courier, is thrown into an assignment under the command of her employer, a man she knows only as "Boss." She operates from and over a near-future Earth in North America, a vulgar and chaotic land comprised of dozens of independent states. In America's disunion, Friday keeps her balance nimbly with quick, expeditious solutions as she conquers one calamity and scrape after another.

Destination: Void

The starship Earthling, filled with thousands of hibernating colonists en route to a new world at Tau Ceti, is stranded beyond the solar system when the ship's three organic mental cores - disembodied human brains that control the vessel's functions - go insane. The emergency skeleton crew sees only one chance for survival: build an artificial consciousness in the Earthling's primary computer that can guide them to their destination - and hope it doesn't destroy the human race.

Glory Road

. C. “Scar” Gordon was on the French Riviera recovering from a tour of combat in Southeast Asia, but he hadn’t given up his habit of scanning the personals in the newspaper. One ad in particular leapt out at him: "Are you a coward? This is not for you. We badly need a brave man. He must be 23 to 25 years old, in perfect health, at least six feet tall, weigh about 190 pounds, fluent English with some French, proficient with all weapons, some knowledge of engineering and mathematics essential...."

Job: A Comedy of Justice

After firewalking in Polynesia, fundamentalist minister Alexander Hergensheimer never saw the world the same. Now called Alec Graham, he was in the middle of an affair with his stewardess, Margrethe, and natural disasters kept following them. First, there was an impossible iceberg that wrecked the ship in the tropics; then, after being rescued by a Royal Mexican plane, they were hit by a double earthquake. To Alex, the signs were clear that Armageddon and the Day of Judgment were near.

Starman Jones

Max Jones, a practical, hard-working young man, found his escape in his beloved astronomy books. When reality comes crashing in and his troubled home life forces him out on the road, Max finds himself adrift in a downtrodden land - until an unexpected, ultimate adventure carries him away as a stowaway aboard an intergalactic spaceship.

The Man Who Sold the Moon

Today the moon - tomorrow the stars. The Man Who Sold the Moon: A landmark volume in Heinlein’s magnificent Future History series. D. D. Harriman is a billionaire with a dream: the dream of Space for All Mankind. The method? Anything that works. Maybe, in fact, Harriman goes too far. But he will give us the stars....

Cyteen

The saga of two young friends trapped in an endless nightmare of suspicion and surveillance, of cyber-programmed servants and a ruling class with century-long lives – and the enigmatic woman who dominates them all.

Revolt in 2100

After the fall of the American Ayatollahs (as foretold in Stranger in a Strange Land) there is a Second American Revolution; for the first time in human history there is a land with Liberty and Justice for All.

The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress

In what is considered one of Heinlein's most hair-raising, thought-provoking, and outrageous adventures, the master of modern science fiction tells the strange story of an even stranger world. It is 21st-century Luna, a harsh penal colony where a revolt is plotted between a bashful computer and a ragtag collection of maverick humans, a revolt that goes beautifully until the inevitable happens. But that's the problem with the inevitable: it always happens.

Stranger in a Strange Land

Stranger in a Strange Land tells the story of Valentine Michael Smith, an earthling born and educated on Mars, who arrives on Earth with superhuman powers and a total ignorance of the mores of man. Smith is destined to become a freak, a media commodity, a scam artist, a searcher, and finally, a messiah.

The Rolling Stones

One of Heinlein's best-loved works, The Rolling Stones follows the rollicking adventures of the Stone family as they tour the solar system. It doesn't seem likely for twins to have the same middle name. Even so, it's clear that Castor and Pollux Stone both have "Trouble" written in that spot on their birth certificates. Of course, anyone who's met their grandmother Hazel would know they came by it honestly.

I Will Fear No Evil

As startling and provocative as his famous Stranger in a Strange Land, here is Heinlein’s grand masterpiece about a man supremely talented, immensely old, and obscenely wealthy who discovers that money can buy everything.

The Door into Summer

Dan Davis, an electronics engineer, had finally made the invention of a lifetime: a household robot that could do almost anything. Wild success was within reach, but then Dan's life was ruined. In a plot to steal his business, his greedy partner and greedier fiancée tricked him into taking the "long sleep": suspended animation for 30 years.

Sixth Column

The totalitarian East has triumphed in a massive invasion, and the United States has fallen to a dictatorial superpower bent on total domination. That power is consolidating its grip through concentration camps, police state tactics, and a total monopoly upon the very thoughts of the conquered populace. A tiny enclave of scientists and soldiers survives, unbeknownst to America’s new rulers. It’s six against six million - but those six happen to include a scientific genius, a master of subterfuge and disguise who learned his trade as a lawyer-turned-hobo, and a tough-minded commander....

Waldo & Magic, Inc.

North Power Air is in trouble. Their aircraft are crashing at an alarming rate and no one can figure out the cause. Desperate for an answer, they turn to Waldo, a crippled misanthropic genius who lives in a home in orbit around Earth, where the absence of gravity means that his feeble muscle strength does not confine him helplessly in a wheelchair. But Waldo has little reason to want to help the rest of humanity - until he learns that the solution to Earth’s problems also holds the key to his own.

Citizen of the Galaxy

In a distant galaxy of colonized planets, the atrocity of slavery is alive and well. Young Thorby was just another bedraggled orphan boy sold at auction, but his new owner, Baslim, is not the disabled beggar he appears to be. Adopting Thorby as his son, Baslim fights relentlessly as an abolitionist spy. When the authorities close in on Baslim, Thorby must find his own way in a hostile galaxy. Joining with the Free Traders, a league of merchant princes, Thorby must find the courage to live by his wits and fight his way up from society's lowest rung.

Artifact

Deep in the Indian Ocean, Dr. Selene Khan enters an underwater dome thousands of years old, one that is fully operational. She barely escapes to the surface, only to discover that her research vessel has vanished. Can she make it to shore 100 miles away? On the other side of the world, Agent Jack Elliot uncovers an impossible 900 grams of antimatter. The trail leads him to Egypt, betrayal, and a sinister brainwashing facility. There, in a desperate move, he rescues Dr. Selene Khan.

Starfire

On June 30, 1908, an object fell from the sky, releasing more energy than a thousand Hiroshima bombs. A Siberian forest was flattened, but the strike left no significant crater. The anomaly came to be known as the Tunguska Event, and scientists have never agreed whether it was the largest meteor strike in recorded history - or something else. Alien artifacts have been uncovered since the 1908 event, and a new star drive is discovered.

Farmer in the Sky

Farmer In The Sky is a 1953 science fiction novel by Robert A. Heinlein about a teenage boy who emigrates with his family to Jupiter's moon Ganymede, which is in the process of being terraformed. A condensed version of the novel was published in serial form in 1950 in Boys' Life magazine (August, September, October, November), under the title "Satellite Scout".

Publisher's Summary

The wickedest, most wonderful science-fiction story ever created in our - or any - time. Anything can begin at a party in California - and everything does in this bold masterwork by a grand master of science fiction.

When four supremely sensual and unspeakably cerebral humans - two male, two female - find themselves under attack from aliens who want their awesome quantum breakthrough, they take to the skies - and zoom into the cosmos on a rocket roller-coaster ride of adventure, danger, ecstasy, and peril.

Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) was the dominant science-fiction writer of the modern era, a writer whose influence on the field was immense. He won science fiction's Hugo Award for best novel four times.

What the Critics Say

“One of the grand masters of science fiction.” (Wall Street Journal)

“The most influential science fiction writer of all time!” (Locus)

“[A story] about two men and two women in a time-machine safari through this and other universes. But describing The Number of the Beast thus is like saying Moby-Dick is about a one-legged guy trying to catch a fish.” (National Review)

I would have waited even longer to have better narration. I'm two hours into the audiobook. I'm forcing myself to continue on, because I haven't experienced this story since my paperback copy went missing back in the early 90s.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

I don't mind ensemble readings. The Godfather was quite enjoyable. But this... I don't know if I'll finish it. I like Bernadette Dunn, usually. I don't care much for her reading of Hilda, but in my opinion, her performance is the best of the group. Deety's narrator makes her sound utterly immature and annoying. Her intelligently-written character becomes whiny and annoying. Zeb is read like he is a doddering old man. Jake's character performance is not memorable either way.

I love this book - BUT I really recommend waiting until they delete the passages narrated by Emily Durante. I'm so sorry to say it - but her segments are so terribly awful that I have to skip them. It is NO FUN listening with my hand on the button to "Scram" when I hear that voice. It interrupts the flow of the book - abruptly break the mood. It distracts me with thoughts like "nepotism, training wheels" and "at my expense". There is at least one passage where she is actually inoffensive. Thank Goodness I know the book so well. So I just imagine through those parts. We who purchased it should get a credit for the corrected version with Ms. Durante excised and replaced by...Ms. Dunne for example. It pains me to say that of someone's narration - but it pains me to listen to Ms. Durante. For those who've read the other Lazarus Long novels and stories - this entire book is memorable and rather important. Like me, readers may have been waiting for its audio format. I call it Hands-Free reading. It is a torturous shame that they allowed one poor narrator to ruin the overall experience. As may be...the book and the other narrators are all such a pleasure!

What other book might you compare The Number of the Beast to and why?

I compare it to...other Heinlein books, especially the Future History works: The Cat Who Walked Through Walls...Time Enough For Love... pick one and insert title here. Why? Because they are part of a larger opus, their elements: content, tone, narration/listening experiences, make comparison to this nearly automatic for me.

Would you listen to another book narrated by the narrators?

I might listen to Mark Twain, and other books with a cool, scratchy, country/Southern US twang, by Mr. Runnette; perhaps very short children's books by Ms. Durante, after she's trained up; and Anything by the other Narrators.

Do you think The Number of the Beast needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?

YES!!! A REVISED, CORRECTED VERSION as described above!!! YES!! Follow-up with an APOLOGY! And...Yes - the rest of the Future History Books - and Short Stories. Wake up RAH - rejuvenate him and give him a stiff infusion of modernity and set him back to joyful work!!

Any additional comments?

USE NARRATORS THOUGHTFULLY - Example: If Zeb is clearly described to have a deep, resonant voice - don't use the one male talent with the higher-pitched, cool, yet scratchy/twangy, elder sound to voice him. It's not fair to them or to the text. Heinlein's books are Smart - even with his certain "off" views and socio-sexual anachronisms. But they are ultimately smart as all h=ll - and that makes the not-smart choice of any narrator even more off-putting. I truly hope it will be amended.

Boy meets girl, boy is impressed with girl's large breasts, girl and boy along with girl's father and his girlfriend fly to Las Vegas to get married, the same night they first meet. Next morning girl and girl's step mother decide to parade around the house topless. Girl admits to step mother that she would have slept with her dad if he wanted, she loved him so, what was the problem. Step mother admits to admiring step daughter's husband.

The book itself rotates perspective between the four main characters. For the audio, they handled this by having four voice actors, one for each perspective. And so the actor reading as Jacob, for example, would voice the entire chapter written from his perspective, including doing his impression of Hilda's voice when she is speaking, etc. Then when it's a Hilda perspective chapter, you have that voice actor doing their impression of everyone's voices. The total effect was irritating for me, and might had been confusing as well had I not previously read the book in print. It would have been better if they had either:<br/><br/>1) had each of the actors do their own dialogue in all chapters, and have the actor whose perspective the chapter was do all of the non dialogue. <br/><br/>Or<br/><br/>2) just had one person narrate the entire book.

What three words best describe the narrators’s voice?

While the male voices were fine, the female voices often came across as overly ditzy or sexual, which detracted from the book as a whole.

I loved starship troopers and stranger in a strange land. This one is just weird. The major themes are nudism, breasts, open and insestual marriage, commanding and sci-fi and fantasy books I've not read. When Asimov called Heinlein a "flaming liberal," he wasn't kidding. I kept hoping they would explore clever uses of the continua drive, but nothin. I had to stop listening at the end because it made no sense to me. There should be a required reading list for before you read this book so you could get any of the references. It doesn't work on its own.

Although I will probably listen to this again, as I usually listen to my Heinlein often, it won't be any time soon. Having four narrators was probably the best way to present the four different viewpoints, but the narrator for DeeTee sounded too much like a little girl and didn't pull off the male voices as well as the other female narrator.

Yes, I'm working my way through all of his books. I love most of his stuff. LOVE it. Which is the only reason I kept reading this waste of time.

Have you listened to any of the narrators’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

I don't think so.

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from The Number of the Beast?

The geometry and navigation lessons, the nonsense about command, and any scenes involving the four main characters.

Any additional comments?

Heinlein has created a mess of a book. He has created characters I can't stand, a story premise that is unintelligible, and seems to have a fetish for the word "kiss." In almost every scene where someone is leaving, someone else is saying "kiss me." He has done this in other books, but this one is just brutally annoying. <br/><br/>The only thing I liked was "Gay Deceiver" and the furtherance of the Lazarus Long mythology. But that was the last quarter of the book. The rest - well, read this if you're reading other Heinlein stuff. You'll hate it, but it's like the one course in college you had to take. <br/><br/>Don't bother reading it otherwise. <br/><br/>

I read this book years ago and thoroughly enjoyed listening to this excellent production. I had forgotten how confusing the story could be at times but the cast did a fantastic job and I really enjoyed listening to it.

Who was your favorite character and why?

I am not sure who my favorite character is because they were all portrayed so well.

The sory in this book besides a homage to the authors of the golden age of SF & F is the ultimate multiverse story. The two following novels form RAH "The cat who walks through walls" which also has the prerequisite of "The Moon is a harsh mistress" the novel "to sail beyond the sunset" is also based on the result of this book. A must listen for Hienlien fans.Great listen

Would you consider the audio edition of The Number of the Beast to be better than the print version?

Much Better

If you’ve listened to books by Robert A. Heinlein before, how does this one compare?

A bit too technical - I could have done without all the maths

What about the narrators’s performance did you like?

doing this as separate narrators per person fitted the book exactly and it ran very smoothly. very well done.

Did you have an emotional reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

mainly irritation at all the wrangling about who was "Captain"

Any additional comments?

I have had this book in my to listen to pile for a fair while but was a bit nervous about playing it mainly because I did not want to be disappointed as I had re-read the book and found it very hard going. Not to worry ~ I thoroughly enjoyed it (mostly) but all 4 could have done with a good slap at times.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Amazon Customer

Manchester, UK

7/8/13

Overall

Performance

Story

"One of Heinlein's most difficult reads!"

Fortunately this is not typical of Heinlein's work! It is an attempt to examine fiction as history, unfortunately the plot and characters decend into gibberish, with the thread of the book disapearing. I would avoid this book and look at Time Enough for Love, I will fear no Evil, A Stranger in a Strange Land, Friday or Starship Troopers which bettyer represent this very gifted Sci-Fi author. This is definately for Fans only!

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Mr

Liverpool, United Kingdom

8/6/13

Overall

Performance

Story

"I struggled with this one"

What did you like best about The Number of the Beast? What did you like least?

This book has some really good use of language, discussions of theories and I loved how the story switched between characters. I found the narrators ok but not amazing. This is normally enough for me to love a story but I found the whole thing a struggle. It felt long, slow and the only reason I stuck with it until the end was out of some reverence to the author and the hope that it would get much better. The early parts of the book (earth and mars) were really good but anything after chapter 38 became a chore. <br/><br/>I really cannot put my finger on what might have been my least favorite parts I am guessing its just the book wasn’t a good fit for me. As a result of haven’t given the story as a whole a low score.

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Number of the Beast?

The best part of the book would have to be the whole mars British vs Russian thing. I would this part of the book the most enthralling. The characters where great and the way the plot worked really kept me going.

What aspect of the narrators’s performance might you have changed?

the narrators were good and worked well together, some of the males performance seemed to be a bit lacking in enthusiasm from time to time and didn’t always fit the mood of the story.

Could you see The Number of the Beast being made into a movie or a TV series? Who would the stars be?

it could be done and if made faster i would find it entertaining

Any additional comments?

this book has made me down load john carter of earth and given me a list of other books to down load. all of which were mentioned in this book. i hope once i have listened to or read these that i will return to the number of the beast and find it more enjoyable.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

A P Smith

Bath, B&NES England

6/25/13

Overall

Performance

Story

"Unbelievably bad!"

Being a science fiction fan, I thought I had better check out some Heinlein as the author seems to be highly regarded and often mentioned in the same breath as the the great Asimov. For the first couple of hours I thought I must have made a mistake and downloaded the wrong book!

Quite simply this is book is unbelievably bad. The plot, on paper, sounds promising, travel to different dimensions/parallel universes in a home made time machine while being pursued by aliens - all classic sci-fi stuff. However the plot is virtually irrelevant because 90% of the book (not an exaggeration) consists of banal bickering and discussions about trivia between the main characters. The characters (and the author) seem only to have the vaguest passing interest in the plot.

For example the characters arrive on an apparently inhabited Mars in a parallel universe. What's the first thing they do? Explore? Express wonder at their location? No, they have an incredibly long and tedious discussion about sleeping arrangements, how best to program the ships computer, bicker endlessly about the chain of command and even arrangements for going to the toilet!

I won't even mention the dodgy science and the frankly embarrassing (for a sci-fi author) lack of understanding of the capabilities of computers (it's as if this book was written in 1930 not 1980!). The female characters are completely unbelievable and seem to have been created to fulfil the authors adolescent fantasies. Speaking of which the whole book reads like it was written by a 14 year old boy, except a 14 year old boy would have put more action in it!

I can't image how frustrating it must be to read because after half an hour I wanted to slap all the main characters. After 2 hours I could cheerfully have throttled the lot of them and the author to prevent him inflicting any more of this on anyone.

I understand that this book was apparently written while the author was recovering from a serious illness and that his brain may have been starved of oxygen. That might explain a lot because I can see no other way that a supposedly celebrated author could spew out this tripe.

3 of 5 people found this review helpful

spyder

West Midlands, UK

4/4/16

Overall

Performance

Story

"Confusing and disjointed"

I've enjoyed many of RAHs stories, and so was greatly disappointed not to enjoy this one. I found the plot disjointed, and the storytelling swinging from rushed to tedious and back again. The audio recording struggled with RAHs decision to tell the tale from 6 different characters' points of view. The decision to give each pov their own narrator is reasonable, but itself adds to the jarring nature of the text as each person applies their own interpretation to the protagonists

0 of 0 people found this review helpful

Mr Simon W D Borland

2/24/16

Overall

Performance

Story

"I loved it - but I am a fan boy"

Where does The Number of the Beast rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

For me it is high up there, BUT I am a mad fan of Robert E Heinlein, and have read it in paperback also.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Deety. And the Beast (well his cameo role). And Lazarus Long making his much loved appearance.

Any additional comments?

Its a complex book, and a lot of "dialogue" going around in circles, often arguing about abstract mathematical concepts, or tiny errors of conversation which the characters keep trying to trick each other or point out the other persons mistake... BUT if you know Heinlein, you will get it and love it. Sci Fi and Heinlein fans will devour it. But if you stumble across it unprepared, you may sink under the pages of mathematical arguments.. I loved it.

0 of 0 people found this review helpful

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